ten_fwd | The wrong Enterprise (open)

Entry tags:

The wrong Enterprise (open)

Anyone familiar with the history of Starfleet - at least when it came to uniforms - would recognise that the man who appeared in Ten Forward was from two hundred years ago. His uniform was a lot like a blue boiler suit, with red stripes, three pins denoting his rank of Commander, and a lot of pockets.

Commander Charles Tucker III was confused. A moment ago he'd been on Enterprise and now he was somewhere else. It looked like it could be a bar, but the stars outside and the feeling beneath his feet of a warp engine, told him it was a starship. So this was a mess hall, perhaps. He didn't feel like he'd been transported. And if something had wiped his memory his shoulder would have improved. He moved his left arm experimentally in its sling. No, definitely no memory wipe and he'd definitely just been on Enterprise.

Trip unzipped a pocket and came across a hyper spanner. "I wondered where that went," he muttered to himself. He put it back and pulled out his communicator. Flipping it open he said, "Tucker to Enterprise." There was nothing - not even static. It was as if Enterprise was not in range, but if that was the case how did he get here? If only he had two hands free and the right tools, he'd take the communicator apart to check it was working. He tried it again, not really expecting an answer this time. "Tucker to Enterprise."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It was the first time, thus far, that Jim had felt compelled to treat anyone the way he'd been treated by some when he'd first arrived.

Commander Charles 'Trip' Tucker III, before his very eyes.

Jim had been relatively good at 'fleet history, at the Academy.

He choked slightly on his drink, trying to cover by wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

"You all right, Commander?" he asked after he recovered.

"Uh, yeah." Confused, but physically he was fine. "You okay?" The other man had just been practically choking, and Trip looked a little worried.

"Fine, fine," Jim said, waving it away. He gestured to the Commander's communicator. "I know you have no reason to believe me, and if I were you'd I'd keep trying. But I very much doubt anyone's going to answer you. And if you're looking for the Enterprise, well... we're on the same boat."

So to speak. Unfortunately, Jim was the only one who was going to appreciate that little pun, and that, only with some bitterness.

"Jim Kirk," he said, holding out his hand. "USS Enterprise."

"Trip Tucker. USS Enterprise" He shook Jim's hand. "Not the same Enterprise, I'd have remembered you." He knew there wasn't another USS Enterprise - it wouldn't make sense for Starfleet the same name to two ships - but it was the only explanation that made sense.

"Do you mind if I join you?" If he could put his communicator down on the table it would be easier to fiddle with it and perhaps get it to work again.

"Please do," Jim said, gesturing to a chair. He wondered if this was anything like how people from this time felt, meeting someone like him. It felt a little like comeuppance.

"Not the same Enterprise," he confirmed. "I have something to tell you, Commander Tucker. You, and I for that matter, have been brought forward in time and to yet another Enterprise. It's 2366, and as yet, no one's figure out a way to get us home." Jim's frustration was banked, but palpable.

If that was true his communicator definitely wasn't going to work. But he sat and fiddled with some of the settings anyway.

"Daniels," he guessed, at the news. "Or some other temporal agent. I thought the Temporal Cold War was over."

"From what I've heard, it's an entity named Q. All powerful and, it would seem, very bored. I've met his type before--limitless power and nothing better to do than mess with lower life forms."

Jim studied Tucker as discretely as he could. He'd always been curious about this era, with the sort of backwards respect one afforded a less advanced but more adventurous time.

"And since our day, they've put a bunch of temporal protocols in place," he added. "So I've been told very little, despite the fact that, well, it seems our entire history is known by everyone I meet."

Trip was glad he hadn't met anyone - or anything - like Q before. He'd seen enough movies to know the type. And given his sudden appearance here, it seemed like the movies were right.

"That sucks." He frowned. "I don't want to know my future, but I wouldn't mind knowing how warp engine design has changed."

His hyper spanner was useful for a number of things. Right now, he was using it to prise open his communicator, while trying not to use his left arm too much. It was easier to think about the problem of being here when he was working.

"You're in luck. They're starting classes for those of us stuck here. One of them is warp theory." He hid a smile behind his glass. And here Jim was, knowing all sorts of things about Tucker's future. Well, a few, at least. "You seem remarkably calm, Commander. Disbelief, or just Southern laid-backness?"

He raised his arm, calling a waiter over.

"What'll you have?"

"Whiskey would go down well, right about now." And probably tell him a whole lot about this place. He smiled at the waiter, before answering Jim's question. "Bit of both, I guess." The disbelief part was at least partly why he continued to work on the communicator.

"I don't think I need classes in warp theory," he said, chuckling. "I'm the chief engineer on Enterprise. I've worked on a few warp engines in my time." If he really was in the future it would have changed by now, but not that much. The warp engine theory was sound, he was sure of that.

"The real thing," Jim said, to the waiter. "There's something here called synthehol," he explained to Tucker. "You don't want to know. But my point, about warp theory is... I have no doubt you know everything you could possibly know. But your ship traveled, if I recall correctly... warp 5? In 2268 we're on the point of a standard travel speed of warp 8. Coming here? I'm told it's advanced far enough they've actually re-scaled the whole thing, so our warp 5 isn't theirs at all. And that everything I know is obsolete."

He shook his head. "My point being, Commander, that while this future-Starfleet might be more advanced, they're going to need the help of the cavalry to get us back where we belong."

"Warp 8." He sounded amazed about it and had a dreamy look on his face for a moment, just imagining warp 8 being a standard traveling speed.

"I'd like to help. I guess I can take some classes if it means they'll let me at their engines." Which had got to be amazing. He just wasn't so good at sitting down and listening. "Working helps me learn better than classes, but I'm not sure I'd even let Zefram Cochrane loose on my engines without someone watching him."

Jim laughed. "I met him, once," he says. "Cochrane, I mean. I guess I'm violating some law or other by mentioning it. Anyway, I'm not saying taking classes is the answer. I am saying that, Commander, you're going to get bored on this boat. I'm going to keep looking for a way off, but already I've come to realize it's important to stay busy, as well."

There's something refreshing about Tucker. Something... not backwards, exactly, but old-fashioned, but in the way someone not being too polite is. It's passion, Jim realizes. And cockiness. And the complete lack of comprehension that he's been flung into a technological era he hasn't imagined yet.

In that sense, Jim thinks, they're more than a bit alike.

"I guess you're right. I like to be busy." If he'd been back on Enterprise, spending all his time with the engines would have been just fine with him. Here, he was just going to have to find something else to take his mind off things.

His drink arrived and he took a cautious sip. "That's good stuff," he concluded, smiling. "At least the future has good whiskey." He held his glass up in a salute to the whiskey of the future.

Jim mirrors the salute with his own glass. "You have to ask for it," he reminds Trip. "It's the under the counter stuff you want." A few ensigns in modern Starfleet are sitting a few tables away, and Jim looks round to notice them staring at the two of them. One flushes a little and pokes the other to look away, and Jim rolls his eyes slightly. Cambridge had been right, about being able to enjoy a drink in peace. But there's only so much time he can spend staring at his borrowed bulkheads.

He realizes, suddenly, that it's probably not just him they're giggling about. How must it look, James T. Kirk and Commander Trip Tucker sitting together?

"Another word of advice," he says. "Don't let it unbalance you. The fact that, well, you're going to be recognized. You and me? We're in a fishbowl."

He nodded. The under the counter stuff was always better. He could imagine a bar on a starship not having a big stock of hard liquor. Not that he'd ever imagined a bar on a starship before.

He'd assumed that being new and drinking whiskey was what they were staring at. He hadn't thought he'd be recognized. Archer, maybe, but not him. He frowned at Jim. "I'm not that famous," he protested. "What did you do that gets you recognized?"

"Not now," Jim said. "I mean, when you're from. But you're part of something people will still be reading and talking and teaching about hundreds of years later." He took a sip of his own drink. "I'm Captain of the Enterprise in my own time. People keep coming up to me and congratulating me on my 'historic' mission. Which... hasn't ended yet."

He chuckled. "I think I'd rather be remembered for a historic mission than for stopping the Xindi." Not that it hadn't been important, but exploring had been a lot less stressful. "That was more the captain than me, but then it's the captains that get all the honor. And all the responsibility."

Jim shook his head. "I don't think you understand. It's not just that. It's the historic mission, as a whole. It's the romance of the unexplored. There's always an unexplored, but... I think those of us who are of that bent envy those who were the first to see, say, the American West, or the moons of Jupiter, or Centauri VII. Besides," he says, nodding slightly towards the ensigns who were now looking anywhere but, "one of those is from Engineering."

Trip looked over as well, accidentally catching the eye of one of the Ensigns, who blushed and studied his drink.

"I guess," he said, turning back to his own drink. "It is something, to step on a planet that no other humans have ever been on before. I'm not too keen on the shuttles they used to go to the moon in the 20th century, but imagine being the first person to set foot on the moon." He certainly romanticised the unexplored himself.

"Doesn't this Enterprise explore new civilizations too?"

So far, Tucker was exceeding expectation. If Jim had ever anticipated meeting the Commander, that was. Which he hadn't. The more they spoke? The more Jim became convinced the two times were more alike than not.

Despite some very important socio-political differences.

"From what I've been told? Yes. Just further out than you or I reached. Or, well..." Jim paused, musing. "I think there are a few instances which would give them a run for their money, but whenever my ship reached the edge of the unknown, it was usually due to outside influence. Some part of me hopes that there will always been an unknown, or we'll cease to be what we are." He smiled. "Then again, shoved into the future as I am? I very much feel a relic."

"The galaxy would be a boring place if we'd explored it all." But maybe by then humans would have worked out how to get to other galaxies. There always seemed to be a new frontier to explore.

He sipped his drink, while considering what being in the future would be like, once he'd been here for a bit longer. "Even being from the past you've got some useful skills. The first man on the moon wouldn't have a clue about the warp drive, but I bet he'd be better than anyone here in zero g."

This was the most positive Jim had felt in some time. He laughed at Tucker's comment, nodding. "How are you with internal combustion engines?" he said. "I had to drive one awhile back, and I have to say... I'm glad there's no holovid record."

"That bad, huh?" he asked with a grin. "I was never that great at driving one myself - I much preferred tinkering with them." Once he'd discovered the joy of making something go, any engine would do. "I eventually got better at putting it all back together after I'd taken it apart," he added, laughing.

Jim laughed back, as much at himself as anything. Though, yes, the fact he was talking to Tucker was still making him slightly giddy. "Me? It was always the going that got to me. I never wanted to stay still. Ask my mother. Horses, boats, spaceships--it didn't matter. As long as it got me somewhere else." He shook his head. "I don't think I've ever even been running from anything."

(no subject)

tript - 2015-10-29 13:00 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

original_fine - 2015-12-12 03:50 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only